MORE HISPANIC IMMIGRANTS ATTAINING HIGHER EDUCATION LEVELS
As many young immigrants come to this country, they find a new culture with a different language, more or less family values, intricate politics, and a complex educational system where not everyone can survive.In fact, an article from Genaro Armas of the Chicago Suntimes says even though immigrants are completing higher degrees in school, "the education gap with native-born Americans remains wide." He shows that percentage of graduating high school immigrants "increased from 28 to 59...between 1970 and 2000. However, in residents born in the U.S. it went up "from 53 to 87 percent."
But why does such gap exist? Armas' attributes it to the high cost of college education, teens and young adults that come to this country for labor purposes only, and for undocumented students the lack of financial aid. Other reasons have to do with English, if an immigrant student had little or no exposure to the language previously it will be harder for this person to learn and complete school assignments, says Ana Maria Soto, Director of Latino Cultural Affairs at Columbia College. Also, parental pressure towards females over 15 to stay home and take care of their younger siblings could be the only option because "some parents might think girls are not going to need education as much as boys," Soto says.
Armas' article reports recent findings of the Pew Hispanic Center, which states in its web site it specializes in research "to improve the understanding of the diverse Hispanic population in the United States." One of the researchers said to the Suntimes "undocumented immigrants from Mexico tend to be less educated and don't have to travel far to get to the United States." However, according to Soto "you can't paint such a large stroke on Mexican immigrants; they come on all education levels and for various reasons." The researcher also said to the Suntimes " those [immigrants] from South America typically have to pay more money to come to the country"; Soto agrees and says college enrollment and completion is low in general "only 18 percent of the enrolled Hispanics graduate from college compared to 38 percent of white students...that's a 20 percent difference."
Many organizations are interested in supporting Latino Students to obtain higher education levels. Locally, Upward Bound is one of them "it provides high school minority students tutoring helping them stay in school," says Soto. At Columbia College the office of Latino Cultural Affairs Office plays a big role when it comes to mentoring minorities; Soto runs "a program that creates a community of people that watch out for each other." She does several preventive programs to keep Latinos in school, and offers a limited number of scholarships oriented to Hispanic students through her department.
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